The city of Louisville, Kentucky, and its police force have settled two civil rights lawsuit with the boyfriend of the late Breonna Taylor.
Kenneth Walker, the man in the apartment with the former emergency room technician at the time of her killing, was awarded a six-figure settlement on Monday, his attorneys announced.
“He will live with the effects of being put in harm’s way due to a falsified warrant, to being a victim of a hailstorm of gunfire and to suffering the unimaginable and horrific death of Breonna Taylor,” one of his attorneys, Steve Romines said in a statement.
Former Louisville Metro Police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly confirmed to The Courier-Journal, that Louisville Metro settled with Walker on Monday, Nov. 14 for $2 million.
Two years ago, Walker reportedly shot Mattingly in the thigh during a botched drug raid at the property.
Walker was charged with assault and attempted murder of a police officer. These charges were later dropped. He sought unspecified monetary damages from the city and Louisville Metro Police Department for assault, battery, false arrest and imprisonment, malicious prosecution, abuse of process and negligence.
Frederick Moore, an attorney representing Walker, said information about the settlement could not be confirmed. He also said specifics about the settlement are still in mediation until “details have been finalized.”
City officials also are tight-lipped about the reported payout.
The lawyer for Kelly Goodlett, an LMPD detective let go because she was involved with the falsifying of documents to obtain a search warrant for Mattingly and others to barge into Taylor’s home, said she was released from the lawsuit on Monday. According to attorney Joey Klausing, Goodlett will not have to pay anything.
Walker was asleep with his girlfriend on March 13, 2020, when the officers entered the South End apartment.
The group was authorized to serve the search warrant because higher-ups created a story about the unit being a part of a drug ring. Raiding Taylor’s home was an attempt to get more information in an ongoing narcotics investigation. However, the information used to obtain the warrant was untrue.
While resting in Taylor’s bedroom, Walker heard a sound outside the room’s door and believed an intruder was breaking in, he’s said previously. He fired a single shot that struck Mattingly, a claim Walker’s attorney has disputed.
Immediately after he fired his weapon, officers returned fire, 32 shots in all, fatally striking Taylor, the 26-year-old who was not connected to the suspected narcotic activities. Taylor was hit six times and died.
Six months later, Walker filed two civil lawsuits against the city and the police officers involved in various aspects of the raid with the state and federal court, asking to be awarded punitive and compensatory damages.
According to the lawsuit, Walker states his civil rights were violated by law enforcement when they obtained and approved a search warrant with “materially false” information, came into Taylor’s apartment without announcing themselves, and used excessive and unreasonable force.
It stated, according to WDRB-TV, police “threatened Kenny’s life, illegally detained Kenny, interrogated him under false pretenses, ignored his account as corroborated by neighbors, and arrested and jailed Kenny.”
The lawsuit also accuses law enforcement of making a false arrest, engaging in “malicious prosecution,” and negligence — using a fabricated story that alleged Jamarcus Glover, Taylor’s former boyfriend, was receiving packages at the apartment.
Glover was at the center of a drug investigation by the LMPD, and the “no-knock” warrant was one of several other warrants that raided numerous other suspected drug houses in a 10-mile radius from Taylor’s Springfield Drive near Pleasure Ridge Park.
The officers dispute that they did not knock, saying while the warrant would have allowed them to come in, they still banged the door and announced they were coming in.
Within the claim, Walker names Goodlett, former detective Joshua Jaynes and former Sgt. Kyle Meany for their alleged part in falsifying information for the warrant and later conspiring to cover up the fact they used bad information to obtain the warrant that led to the raid.
In August, a federal court charged all three with multiple civil rights violations.
During the 2022 midterm elections, the judge that approved the search warrant lost her seat as a Jefferson County Circuit Court judge. Breonna Taylor’s mother endorsed the official, but it was not enough to give her the win. She lost by 2 percent of the vote, officials declared.
